


What Happens on the Galactica...

by ishafel



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-13
Updated: 2011-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-15 15:03:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/pseuds/ishafel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been 51 days since they last fought the Cylons. Sometimes peace is overrated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Happens on the Galactica...

Hotdog is only the first case he sees. In the next three days, a dozen pilots, junior officers, and crew come in with identical rashes. Cottle dispenses the antibiotics and lectures on safe sex with a smirk at first, but by the time he gets to number ten he's as worried as he is annoyed. It's either a statistical anomaly or an epidemic, because normally he doesn't see this many cases in a year. When the twelfth one comes in he closes sickbay and heads up to the bridge to talk to the XO. It isn't Medical's job to baby-sit these people.

Lieutenant Dualla gives a stiff nod, but Gaeta blushes and avoids his eyes. Gaeta was case number three, Cottle thinks, which is right about where it stopped being funny. Frakking pilots, with their frakking orgies, are bad enough without the command staff and the knuckle draggers mixed in. He gives Tigh a rundown, omitting the names but not the details, and shakes his head sympathetically when Tigh asks plaintively how things have come to this.

"Might not be a bad idea to have mandatory testing," he says. "We can't have this getting out of hand. Not with supplies as tight as they are."

"Frakking animals," Tigh says. "These frakking kids--no self-control--." It's ridiculous, coming from him, but Cottle has enough self-comtrol to keep his face from changing. "Have to clear it with the old man, Doc," he says. "Wouldn't want to go violating anyone's civil rights or anything."

Cottle nods, resigned, and leaves before Tigh can start talking about the good old days, when you surrendered your civil rights the minute you joined the Fleet, and you walked ten miles up hill both ways in the snow to get to flight college, and you were grateful for the opportunity.

He knocks on the door to Adama's quarters, and he's surprised when he hears a high-pitched giggle from inside. "Admiral?" he calls out. "It's Doctor Cottle. I'm afraid I have important military business to discuss with you."

"Frak," he's fairly sure he hears the Admiral say, but the Admiral never swears. "Just a moment, Doctor. I'm discussing some very sensitive top secret business with the President, and I just need to wrap things up." There's another giggle, too.

Cottle leans back against the wall and lights a cigarette. One of the Marines guarding the door glances at him, winces, and looks away. Number eight, Cottle thinks. The one who claimed to have gotten it from the toilet seats in the CIC.

Eventually President Roslin brushes by him on her way out. Her hair is a little mussed and her face is pink. She pushes her glasses up off her nose and gives him her sternest kindergarten teacher smile. He nods back and doesn't tell her that her skirt is inside out.

"The Admiral will see you now," the Marine says woodenly. His hands tremble as he opens the door.

Adama rises and shakes Cottle's hand. His uniform tunic is buttoned wrong, and he looks almost cheerful. "What can I do for you, Doc?" he asks.

"You and the President worked things out?" Cottle says. "I didn't rush you too much, I hope."

Adama doesn't even flinch. "Not at all, Doctor," he says. "We were able to reach a most satisfactory conclusion."

"You have a venereal disease," Cottle says, pausing to light another cigarette. Adama hands him an ashtray. "Thank you. You have a venereal disease running rampant on your ship, Admiral. I believe that the best way to contain it is to institute mandatory testing for the pilots, crew, and command personnel."

Adama purses his lips. "Junior personnel," Cottle adds. Not hastily. "Those most at risk."

"I suppose you're right," Adama says with a sigh. "Tell me, Doc, has my son--."

"That's confidential," Cottle snaps.

"I was just going to ask if my son had been informed of this," Adama says mildly, but his eyes gleam. "He is the CAG, you know."

"Not yet, no," Cottle says, acknowledging the hit. "So you think that we should start with the pilots?"

"It's been my experience that they're at the root of just about any disaster of this nature," Adama says. He looks like he's getting ready for some heavy reminiscing, so Cottle snaps off a salute and leaves him to it.

He begins the tests at 0600 the next morning, mostly because he knows it will piss the pilots off. They're heavy-eyed with sleep or alcohol, and he can tell which ones are positive without the test. They're the ones squirming in their seats while he speaks. He likes it--it's not often he gets a chance to lecture a Major, three Captains, and five senior-grade Lieutenants. He concludes with, "And each of you will be required to give us a list of your sexual partners from the last thirty days."

There's a general outcry at this, and eventually the CAG shouts them down. He looks sick about it, though: Cottle thinks he's probably as reluctant as the rest of them. With mandatory testing in place, there's little need for this requirement, but Cottle's afraid the medical staff will mutiny if they don't find out the truth. There's too much money riding on this, on the chart they've drawn on the back of the whiteboard he uses to list patients and treatments. Right now it's full of dotted lines and question marks and cubit signs. This is his chance to solidify some of those lines, settle the bets without bloodshed. He smiles his most grandfatherly, vacuous smile as he writes down the names.

It takes six hours to test and treat the pilots, Marines, deck crew, bridge officers, and various military personnel. When it's done, he's seen inside the trousers of half of the Galactica and he's won enough cigarettes to smoke until he dies. There are some unanswered questions, of course. But he's a physician, and he knows that not all of the mysteries concerning the human body can be solved.

He also knows that it's physically impossible for Starbuck to have caught the rash from flying her Viper naked, and that there's a perfectly good reason Apollo's wife didn't catch it, and it's not because she's Sagittaron and they have higher immunity. He knows there's no way Racetrack, Showboat, and Fuzzy all caught it from Hotdog; he doesn't know how Lieutenant Gaeta or Sergeant Hadrian caught it and he doesn't want to know. He isn't even surprised that the Agathons are the only pilots without it, or that Caprica Six and Baltar both have it.

He hands out vials of pills and resists the urge to recount his winnings. He wishes now that he'd taken Tigh's wager, but he hadn't suspected about the Chief and Seelix, and he still doesn't understand which of the pilots gave it to Tom Zarek. He's a little sorry neither the Admiral nor the President have been by, but not too sorry. One Adama is enough. He looks at crotches and hands out vials of pills, and tries not to regret choosing medicine over flying a viper.


End file.
